Melancholy melody & atmospheric texture.  And zany video effects.  And most importantly, robots.

2017 is the year of the robot.  Or at least my robot album.  I’ve already posted some of my robot songs.  I’ll repost them as I get ready to release the album.  For now, here’s a new video of my robot at the discotheque.  Enjoy!

When I finished writing and recording “Prometheus” in 2013 I had a few unused melodies & ideas left over.  They became the beginning of the compositional process for “Rise”.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rise/id1180714168

Once again, the focus is on long, heroic melodies & epic themes done with electric guitar & rock instrumentation!  But this time there are six pieces & the
storyline is more abstract.  Each one of the six tracks is titled with one word that conveys a concept to move the stereotypical story arc forward.

There are 3 melodic themes used in this long introductory piece.  They are interconnected, or integrated, by means of being modulated through different keys, worked through variations & played at various dynamic levels.

The 1st track of “Rise” is “Struggle”.

I’ve just released a new album of jazz guitar standards!

Christopher Schlegel ‘Jazz Guitar’

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/christopherschlegel9

Eight of the tracks are solo chord melody arrangements.  The final two tracks have bass and drum accompaniment for a change of pace.

On my first jazz guitar album I went overboard on virtuoso arrangements.  I used every idea and trick I could think of to play!  On this new album I tried to be more concise and keep to a straight forward rendition of the tune.

However, the song selection was the same as last time.  I picked ten timeless standards from the Great American Songbook, Tin Pan Alley, Broadway stage & film musical.

Cheek To Cheek (Berlin)
After You’ve Gone (Creamer, Layton)
Misty (Garner)
I’m Beginning To See The Light (Ellington)
She’s Funny That Way (Whiting, Moret)
Over The Rainbow (Arlen, Harbur)
Satin Doll (Ellington)
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Martin, Blane)
Love Is Here To Stay (Gershwin)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me (Gershwin)

I hope you enjoy the tunes!

I’m reshooting my series of tutorials that cover learning triads & inversions.  The idea is to show how to cover the entire guitar fretboard with major & minor chord triads: root positions, 1st inversions & 2nd inversions!

This really helps to open up the fretboard beyond the open chords & barre chords that guitarists often start out learning.  Applying a little chord theory really helps make your guitar playing more melodic & therefore more musical.

The first 2 of the series are published!  There will be a total of 8 tutorials (120 plus individual lesson vids!).  I hope complete this project by the end of 2016.

Practicing Major Triads & Inversions Series 1

Practicing Minor Triads & Inversions Series 1

Here’s a teaser vid! Enjoy!

My newest GT tutorial covers four different ways to approach a fundamental jazz guitar technique, a turnaround with a walking bass line.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=2148

I also published a brief lesson on my YouTube channel covering a fundamental blues lick.

I cover that lick and it’s many applications in more depth on GT.

https://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=1614

Enjoy!

Symphony 4 in F Major “America” is now available on iTunes.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/america-symphony-4-in-f-major/id1091577305

And, of course, CDBaby!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/christopherschlegel7

Last year I played a lot of classical guitar. My primary goal was to reshoot about 100 of my classical guitar curriculum video lessons for GuitarTricks.com. These were lessons I did 5-10 years ago, but needed to be upgraded to HD vid, better audio, general production specs.

So, a lot of my studio time in 2015 was spent playing, rehearsing, filming, recording, editing classical guitar music! While my focus & chops were up to the task, I worked on the parallel, secondary goal of recording some of these pieces to release on an album.

Ten pieces made the cut. And this is the resultant album. Enjoy!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/christopherschlegel6

I recently published the fourth tutorial in a series on harmony lead guitar parts. I show how to harmonize major scales & melodies, as well as minor scales & melodies. I cover the basic types of contrapuntal motion: similar, oblique and contrary. As usual there are lots of backing tracks in order to get hands on experience playing along with the various parts and doing it yourself!

This video is an example of what I’m teaching in these tutorials. I did this as a demo when I was planning the tutorial.

You can find all four tutorials in the series at Guitar Tricks! Enjoy!

Harmony Guitar Series 1 Part 1
Harmony Guitar Series 1 Part 2
Harmony Guitar Series 2 Part 1
Harmony Guitar Series 2 Part 2